An Interesting Notion
by Only5EvenInHeight
Summary: Things aren't always what they seem, family secrets are dug up, sometimes should have been left buried and forgotten. Everything is turned upside down, when the past of a young women catches up with her and her companions. And it seems this time, things are far more dangerous and damaging. (Some pairings, VanXWendy)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

A man in a Black Tuxedo

Looking at her know, he would have never thought it was her at first glance, she had changed. He knew that it was Wendy Garret, the young girl that had traveled with him within that year. It was just the way she carried herself, the way, she moved, and talked. That was what caught him off guard. She walked with a womanly grace, she spoke with a calm purpose, and held herself strong. Van was impressed by how she had grown, he had not expected much from her as a child and he never believe she would be any different now. But looking at her, he had been wrong with his assumption.

When he had barged into her little restaurant, he had taken sight of her, it was nothing something he had expected. To see her after all this time, he thought that he would never see her again. He would remember her, he couldn't forget someone like Wendy, they had got through a lot. Even though she was a pain in his ass. But they had gone through so many hardships, seen sides of one another that no other living person had ever seen. Wendy was just someone he thought would just remain in his memories. But it seemed that fate had other ideas for them.

* * *

Van lounged on the recliner in Wendy's house, he had been with her for nearly two weeks. He had no where to be or anywhere to really go. He had just been wondering and doing odd jobs here and there for money. It was something he had grown accustom too. He watched as the rain soaked the world outside. "What a lousy day." He muttered.

"I don't think it is lousy." Van looked over at Wendy who was curled up on the couch. "It is just a good day to stay in doors and just relax." She told him. "It has been mostly sunny for months, I'd say it was about time for some rain." She turned to look outside her window.

Van sighed and looked away. "Yeah, whatever." he muttered and placed his hat over his head. He was bored with one being able to do anything, he could sleep and nap all day. But that got old after a little bit, when for once you weren't tired. When he started to stay here at Wendy's place, he had been working around the place, fixing up the house, doing small jobs here and there. He was always on the move. But after not being able to do that at this point, it was bothersome. He turned to peek at the long haired women on the other side of the nightstand.

Wendy sighed softly through her nose and looked at him, she slowly closed the book she had been reading. "I have some old things in the attic, we can clean that up." She told him as she removed the blanket that was on her lap. She watched as Van stood up and nod his read. "Anything is better then doing nothing." He said as he walked with her towards the attic.

Getting up there proved to be a small challenge. Van and Wendy both hand a surgical mask on their faces so that they didn't inhale anything bad. Wendy had been meaning to clean up the attic for some time, but never got around to it. Once up stairs, they started on cleaning up the place, moving boxes down stairs and sweeping up the mess and killing bugs.

Van was cleaning off the walls and the ceiling of spider webs and dust. He hated bugs, they were just not his thing. It seemed to make Wendy a little bit freaked out and all squirmy. He never figured that she would be scared of small bugs. But he had seen it for himself. After getting the higher places cleaned up, he called up Wendy to start to mop up the place. He looked around the area. "You know, this could actually be a small room of sorts and not just a storage." He mused.

Wendy looked at him with a mop and bucket in her hand. "You might be right, but where would I put all the boxes." She asked him. "I don't have a basement or a shelter." She confessed to him. Van moved out of her way as she started to clean the floors. "Get rid of it, it is not like you'll ever use it." He told her honestly. "And besides the stuff that you have, are not really yours, it was your parents and brothers, and they aren't around anymore."

Wendy nodded her head. "I know they aren't, but I want to have some things of them around you know." She told him. "It is a keep sake." She pushed the mop around the place. "Something to remember them by."

Van nodded his head. He looked down the stairs and at the boxes. "Why not look through them and see what you want to keep and what you don't. Less storage, and who knows you could sell it to someone else who might need it you know?"

Wendy hummed. "I could do that." She said to him, she finished up the floor and grabbed the bucket and looked at him. "Well, until the floor dries, lets look through the boxes and sort through them." She walked down the stairs and walked to the open window and dumped out the dirty water.

Van closed up the attic and grabbed some boxes and headed to the living room and placed them down. There were only a few boxes that she had and some files, some clothes, and a chest. He sat on the floor and opened up the boxes. "Lets see what your parents have been hiding away." He mused.

* * *

Wendy had been looking through the boxes with him for a while, there was a lot of things in the boxes that couldn't be used at all. So she ended up putting them in the waste, there were some clothes that were her fathers and her mothers. She wanted to keep some of them, others she would give them away to some of the homeless.

Wendy came up upon a rather large box, she carefully opened it up. She looked inside to see paper work. "What is this." She inquired as she lifted up a thick envelop. Sitting back she lifted the clip that held it closed. She pulled the papers out and carefully looked at them, scanning over them. "What is this." She looked at the end of the paper and saw that it was her fathers had writing. Van looked over at her and crawled towards her and peeked over her shoulder at the paper, he was a little grateful that she lifted up the paper so that he could get a better look at it all. "This is a project for Dann." He frowned, he gently took the papers from Wendy's hand. Flipping through them, he took notice of the hand writing. "This is Elena's work." He said in a low tone. He felt his hands become a little shaky. He looked at Wendy for a moment, he could see the look of confusion that she held in her eyes and face. "What do you mean Van?"

"It seems that your father and my late wife worked together on Dann." He told her as he showed her some of the documents. "If you look here, they are talking about Dann and the vitals as well as..." he paused to switch the papers. "the genetic coding for the pilot." He continued. "Did you know this?" He asked her.

Shaking her head. "No, I don't know anything about my parents really, only that my father and mother worked a lot, and her away from home the majority of the time." She told him. Looking over the documents, she lifted then up t get more lighting. A small envelope fell out and landed onto her lap. She reached out ad picked it up, placing the stack of papers off to the side.  
Turning the letter around, she frowned. "It isn't addressed to anyone." She told him, looking a bit confused. She opened it up herself and saw that it was a hand written letter.

 _I am sorry for the lack of response these last few weeks. We have recently, come upon a small problem within the Armor. There is no rider for Dann of Thursday, we have been looking through test pilots everyday, but no one is meeting the exceptions of the Royal family. Our dear Princess has denied them all, simply stating that they are not fit or good enough. That was until a man walked in with one of our scientist, he goes by the name of Van. No last name, from what he has informed us, he is a Vagabond. We had been running out of options, we decided together that we should see where he would have gone. Once we received word, the small princess had approved of him, meeting him in person for the first time, we were very surprised by this. The young Royal took a liking to the man, and had instructed Elena to take care of him and Dann. When we asked as to why the young daughter of our King approved of him, her only reply was that "He had pretty red rose eyes." As we went along with this for the time, being we saw that this Van character was truly capable of Dann. And it seemed that Elena was in agreement, she found this Van character to have a fiery spirit about him. I do hope that we are not wrong with this one. And I pray that he will be able to keep out Princess safe.  
_ _Signed Doctor Christon Marks  
_

Looking at Van Wendy raised her brow at him. "You were picked by a princess to be a guardian for her, kinda suiting if you ask me." She mused. "But you aren't really the knight in shinning armor type." She teased a little, she saw the look in his eyes.

"I met the little girl once, she was small little thing, she could hardly talk." He said softly. "I was only nineteen at the time when I started working for Elena." He started off. "anyways, the girl looked right at me and just smiled at me. And told me I had really pretty eyes." He muttered, he then stood up and stretched out his legs from his sitting position. "But sadly, I couldn't do anything for her or her family, the Royal family had been massacred, they couldn't find their bodies, only bits and pieces, the kids were never found." He explained to her. "But from the way their home looked, there was nothing, I don't even believe that they are alive, if they were alive. They would most likely to be dead by now." He scratched his head. "And I had no idea that the little girl was part of the Royal family for the longest time, I thought she was just a daughter of one of the workers." He explained further. He shrugged his shoulders.

Wendy had listened to him carefully and nodded her head. She could understand. "So did you guys look for them, the kids I mean." Van nodded his head. "Yeah, we looked but we found no lead, not a thing." He mused. He still couldn't get his head wrapped around the idea that a little girl had picked him out of many others. It made him smile a little bit. "But that is all in the past now." He explained to her as he looked back at her. "But I am curious what were your parents names?" He asked her softly.

"My mothers name was Esmeralda and my father was Marcellus." The red head told him as she pushed herself up off the floor. "I am curios though, I have lived here my whole life, and my parents worked in town..." She frowned and looked through the box and grabbed something heavy from the box, it was a small chest. "Hey Van look at this." She passed it on to him. "What do you think it is?" She asked him.

"A chest." He said simply as he opened it up, he looked at the contents inside it. "A pair for keys, a pair of rings, and a necklace." He told her. He looked at it carefully, he was rather amazed by the rings, they looked very expensive to him. He showed the women that had been dusting herself off. "Wendy...you might want to look at this. It seems that your mother and father had some secrets."

"Huh, what do you mean." She said and turned back towards him, she was about to clean up everything. She looked at the contents in the small handheld chest and saw the jewelry. "This is the royal crest." He said to her softly. "Why does your family have them?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two  
A night out 

Wendy was sitting down at the table, she was looking at the paper and the chest. She was rather frustrated with what was going on with this picture. There was so much in this box, on these papers, in the chest. It was giving her a headache, her father had been hiding all this work about Dann and his job. She had no idea as to why though, what could he be hiding. Or rather she should say, what could her parents be hiding. She clicked her tongue and she grabbed one of the rings, she looked at it closely and pulled it on her finger and flinched when it tightened on her finger. A shock went through her body and she whimpered as she tugged it off, the ring was hurting her. she stood up from the table, and walked towards the kitchen skin and used some soap to try and get it off. She tugged and tugged on it. But it seemed to be attached to her. She didn't think that it would actually happen like this. They looked like normal rings to her. She leaned against the counter, and frowned when she saw that her palm was lit. She could barely make out what it was. "What is this?" She questioned, she closed the curtains and turned off the lights. Looking at the palm of her hand and saw that it was some sort of constellation.

Van walked into the house, his body dripping with rain water, he had gone to the store for Wendy, he had to pick up some meats and condiments for dinner tonight. He had taken noticed that the lights were off and that the curtains were closed. "Wendy, are you alright?" He placed the bags on the table and glanced around the room. He noticed that one of the rings were gone, he walked from the kitchen and headed towards the living room where he saw Wendy looking at her hand with a confused look on her face. "Wendy?" He questioned, he walked towards her and looked at her hand. "What is going on?" He asked, seeing the problem.

"I don't know, I was looking at the rings, and put it on, and then it started to tighten on my finger. And well this happened." She told him, she held out her hand to show him a better view. "It looks like stars or something." She told him. Taking her hand, Van looked at it carefully. "We should talk to that one kid...blond?" He said looking at her.

"Josh?" She asked him. "Yeah, him." He muttered. "He might now." He told the other and let her hand drop. "Lets just drop it for now, and leave when the weather gets better." He told the female. He stalked back into the kitchen and looked at the papers and started to clean up the mess. He would have to bring all this stuff as well. And the other ring. He looked at Wendy, who had just walked into the kitchen. He closed the chest and and walked way with them, he placed them on the coffee table. He sat down and laid on the couch as Wendy started to cook dinner for them.

* * *

Wendy, Van, and Kameo left the next day to head towards the town of Gloria. They believed that Joshua was there with the old timers and Yukiko helping them with the advancements of The El Dorado Five and his late brothers Armor. Wendy walked beside Van while Kameo carried her small luggage on his back. He was a great help know that he was bigger. "Hey Van, what makes you think that he is in Gloria?" She asked him. It would take them some days, they had to get to Bridge City, hopefully it wouldn't be anything like last time it happened.

"Where else would he go?" He said, "It is not like he has a home to actually return too and it seemed that he and Yukiko had a small thing going after Ray died." He said honestly as he looked at her from the side.

She nodded her head. "I see, so do you think he managed to get his brother and his armor out of the ocean?" Van shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows, we'll see when we get there." He looked at the young women that walked beside him. He never thought that they would be doing this again. But this time, it seemed that her being a young lady might have some problems with the men. He had already seen it around town. They would practically throw themselves at her, and when they would go to the food shops, he had seen them flirting with her, and longing after her. He could see why, she had blossomed into a beautiful women. She had long slender legs, a thin waist, nicely shaped hips and thighs, her bosom had increased too. He had looked yes, but he had respectfully not prolonged his looks. What he had noticed most of all, was that her hair was a lot longer, she had kept them in their respected braids, which was really her, but on more occasions her hair had been let down. When she had dropped her hair, he had urges to reach out and run his fingers through her thick locks. He restrained from doing this. He had no idea as to where these feelings or urges came from.

When he saw those men flirt with her, he felt jealous, and angered. He didn't think that they were good enough, he had these feelings before, and he just believed that she deserved better. He was after all his companion. And not theirs. That was for certain, he had been glad that she looked at him every time though. He loved it when she looked at him, when she looked at him. She saw through him, like he was just Van. He liked the feeling of it. When she look at him, so sweetly, a knot formed in his gut. He knew that he had a small crush on her, he was indeed attracted to the female. For him this could bring him unwanted problems. Not just form him but for her as well.

* * *

Night had fallen upon them. "Well we should reach Bridge City within two days." He told her as he got off the walked off the rode with her, he found a small camp sight for the three of them. He seated himself on the log that had been placed there. "We'll stay here for the night." He told her as she pulled the luggage off her pet turtle and placed it down beside the log.

"Okay, well lets get some wood to start a fire and build a temporary shelter, it looks like it'll get chilly tonight." She told him softly as she as she headed a little further into the forest. Van followed after her and used his sword to cut down some branches for the fire tonight. "I hope you brought some food." He muttered.

"I did." She told him. "Some sandwiches, fruit, and some water." She picked up the wood, and the leaves. "I thought it through this time before leaving Evergreen." She turned to look at him. "I won't let you starve." She grinned at him. She walked back to the sight to see her pink turtle eating at some of the leaves and grass. He was looking rather content with the campsite. The young women placed the wood down and started up the fire. She pulled out a lighter and lit the leaves and lightly blew on it until the fire bloomed. "In the suitcase, the food is in there, you can grab them." She told him, standing up and continued with the fire.

Van nodded his head as he dropped some wood down, he walked towards the log and grabbed the suitcase and opened it up. He saw that there was a few containers filled with food, he reached out for it and picked it up, as he was about to close it. He saw the puzzle that he had been working on all those years ago. "You still have this?" He picked it up and saw that there was some strong string attached to it. He turned to look at her. Holding it up, he didn't think that she had it on her anymore.

Wendy, turned to look at him. "Oh, well yeah. I always have it on me." She told him, she stood up and gently took it from him and placed it around her neck. "I started wearing it once he Kameo got to big to be around my neck." The red head spoke. "It is my treasure." She smiled and held it looking at him.

The man felt his heart beat a little faster, he looked away from her and made a face. "It is just a trinket." He muttered and sat down with the container and started to open it. Getting he food out, before biting into it. "SO GOOD!" He shouted as he bit into it again. He had scared her, seeing her hand over her heart a little bit, and seeing her startled look.

It made him happy that he saw her wearing it, to have kept it all this time. Hearing that it was her treasure made his heart melt. She had changed so much over the years, she had simply grown up. He was proud of her. He watched her as she seated herself down next to him and swipe at a sandwich and picked it up and started to eat it herself. "It took me forever to learn too cook the way you like it. I am glad that I have it to your liking." She looked at the small fire that washed over them with warmth and comfort. "I was sometimes embarrassed by how you ate, so after we found ourselves with everyone, I added everything I could think off, but Carmen got to it first." She said. "And so I continued on doing so." She smiled. "I hope I'll be able to cook for you more often." She finished her sandwich.

Van nodded his head. "I as well, just getting these checked out, the sooner the better." He explained to her. That was something he wanted to do, was to go back with her and eat her cooking. To just lie about and be with her. It seemed to him, that he found something with her, he found family.


End file.
